Mom Yells At Principal During School Award Ceremony Because Her Son Did Not Get An Award
Does everyone deserve to get an award?
Nigita / Shutterstock Award ceremonies can be special days for students. It’s a time to recognize what they have achieved throughout the school year. Unfortunately, with the way most of these ceremonies work, not every child will receive an award. It’s just a fact of life.
That doesn’t mean it’s a fact that’s easy for everyone to accept, though. One mom had major problems after her son did not receive an award at his school’s award ceremony. However, it seems that he may have not even received an invitation to the event in the first place.
One mom was so mad her son didn’t receive any school awards that she yelled at the principal.
An unidentified school in Atlanta recently held its end-of-year award ceremony. One of the parents there, Netriss, recorded the event and posted the video on TikTok.
In the first video Netriss posted from the ceremony, the mother of a student can be seen standing up and walking towards the front of the room, where the school principal was offering his final remarks. According to Netriss, he was reminding students and their parents of the importance of reading over the summer.
The mother began yelling at the principal. While her exact words were unintelligible, it was clear from Netriss’ other videos that she was mad that her son did not receive any awards.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I apologize for what we’re seeing right now,” the principal said, talking over her.
Netriss wasn’t sure that the other mother should have been invited in the first place.
It seems that this angry mother shouldn’t have been in attendance, or at least shouldn’t have been invited to attend at all.
“And I think that’s what made her mad because we literally got this message this morning, right before the ceremony,” Netriss said in another video.
In the video, Netriss shared a screenshot of a message from the school’s communication portal, which read, “Just wanted you to know that if your student did not receive [an] invitation for awards day, they would not be receiving [an] award today.”
“And previously, well, [in] recent weeks, we’ve just [been] getting notified that the award ceremony was happening, but last week we got the invite,” Netriss explained. “He might have didn’t get an invite, but she was notified that the award ceremony was happening, and she still brought him.”
In a subsequent video, Netriss stated that the other mom may have taken an issue with her son not getting an award based on his grades actually being good. Still, she didn’t think that was an excuse for what had happened.
“If you truly cared about your child’s education, you would have had that discussion with the teacher because the teacher is the one that puts the grades in, not the principal,” she said.
Should all kids get awards?
The question of whether or not all kids should be given awards at the end of the school year is similar to that of whether or not participation trophies should be handed out. Many would argue no. Awards should not be given to everyone. They should only go to those who truly “deserve” them.
However, Today Parenting Team columnist Sherry White had a different perspective. She argued awards should have a larger scope “Because the same kids will get awards every year because of their giftedness, and others will never get an award no matter how hard they work because their giftedness lies somewhere else,” she wrote.
Some children hold academic talents and will always be recognized for those abilities. However, others have different talents that are not as readily recognized at school. While it may not seem like a big deal to some, taking the time to acknowledge those talents and achievements means a lot.
Then again, it does not give anyone the right to take over a ceremony that made other kids feel special. This mom clearly handled this situation incorrectly.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer for YourTango who covers entertainment, news, and human interest topics.